Constitutional Defense Of Your Family And Freedom, Part One – You are the first line of defense for your family. What does Constitutional defense look like? How will you protect them and your freedoms? Do you know where to start? Tune in to hear the answers to these questions and more today!

Air Date: 03/27/2023

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcript:

Rick Green
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. You found your way to WallBuilders. This is where we take on the hot topics of the day, from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Thanks so much for joining us. I’m Rick Green, America’s constitution coach and a former Texas legislator here serving with David and Tim Barton. David is of course America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. You can find out more about all three of us at our website WallBuildersLve.com is the radio site. That’s where archives of the program can also be found. And then WallBuilders.com . That’s our main site. And that’s of course, where you can get all kinds of great materials, educational materials, by the way, entertaining educational materials, lots of great information there from articles to DVDs to downloads to mp3 so that you can listen to. If you want to know the true history of our nation, if you want to know what it takes to restore our nation. If you want that biblical, historical and constitutional perspective on all the hot issues of the day, check out the materials there at WallBuilders.com. Now, this week, all throughout the week, we’re going to be sharing a presentation with you called constitutional defense of your family and freedom. Now the timing of this is perfect because we’re opening the Patriot Academy campus in Fredericksburg, Texas in just a few weeks. The big groundbreaking ceremony is April 22. It’s going to be a wonderful, wonderful day. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is joining us, Mark Meckler is joining us, Tim Barton is joining us, John Rich is going to be there. It’s going to be incredible, we’re going to have a fantastic day. And the very next day, we’re going to have the first constitutional defense of your family and freedom event on the campus. Now I know, that’s pretty amazing to break ground one day and have a class the very next day. That’s fast. Now, okay, it’s a ceremonial groundbreaking. So we’ve already have buildings built and ranges going in that’ll be finished by the time the event happens on April 22nd, 23rd. But that first class is going to start on April 23. Now, that class is going to fill up. And you only have a couple of weeks to get registered. So if you would like to join us, make sure you visit today at PatriotAcademy.com . And click on constitutional defense right there on the homepage. It’s an incredible five days that you will spend with us, a phenomenal constitutional education, the best handgun defense training you’ll ever get in your life. It’s absolutely incredible. And you’ll get to hang out with us and have fun, it’s going to be good fellowship. And the Bartons have been with us, gone through the class with us when we were doing it in other locations. Now we’re finally going to be able to do it on the Patriot Academy campus. And we would love for our WallBuilders audience to be there with us. We know many of you have gone with us when we used to do it in Nevada or in New Mexico or in other places. But now it’s going to be on the Patria Academy campus. So super, super excited about that. Check that out today at PatriotAcademy.com , PatriotAcademy.com, and then click on constitutional defense. And you can learn more about the class again, it’s a five day class, the groundbreaking on April 22nd. That’s a Saturday. That doesn’t cost anything, everybody can come to that. it’s free, it’s going to be huge. We’ve got nearly 1,000 people already coming to that. And then the handgun defense and constitution class will start the next day, next afternoon, actually, and that will last five days. There is a charge for that, it’s less than any handgun training you can get anywhere, it’s about 100 bucks a day to do the class. So for the level of training, we’re getting you in the constitutional training as well, that would normally cost you 200 or 300 bucks a day, somewhere else. So we want to treat you we want to bless you, we want to make it a phenomenal experience for you. Check it out today, at PatriotAcademy.com . Now the presentation that you’re going to hear today, and throughout the rest of this week, is part of that training. It’s the Constitution introduction to that training. And so you’ll get a little taste of that this week. And I want to pique your interest this week on this, first of all, with just the expectation of why it’s important for us to defend the Constitution, defend our families, defend the nation, restore these principles of liberty, but also just the foundation on the Second Amendment, understanding why the founders put the second amendment in the Constitution, where the concept of this biblical right of self defense comes from, a lot of that we’re going to introduce you to. So you’ll hear a live presentation throughout this week that we did at our constitutional defense course. At the time we recorded this one, we were doing it out in Nevada, at a place called Front Sight. We had a wonderful time out there for several years took thousands of people out there, had lots of great training, all of that now moved, of course, to the Patriot Academy campus in Texas, but you may still hear some references in the recording this week. But the introduction of the Second Amendment, I think, is really important for folks because a lot of people will say, you know, I’m a pro second amendment person, they’ll even have the Second Amendment stickers on their car or their truck or whatever might be and they’ll talk about the importance of self defense, but they’d never been trained. That was me. I was the fool in Proverbs 27:12 where it says that the wise person foresees danger and takes precaution, but the simpleton, the fool, walks blindly on and suffers the consequences. I had my handgun license, I did not carry my gun. I was the God and guns guy in the Texas Legislature. So I was a state rep carrying the legislation that was the top legislation for the NRA and gun owners of American, and all the other groups. I stopped the cities from suing gun manufacturers, I mean all these things. Charlton Heston actually did an ad for me, because of my legislation that I got passed. So I was a champion for the Second Amendment and did not carry my firearm. So I would not have been able to defend my family. If the wolf had shown up at the restaurant we were eating or a Walmart we were in, or in our home, I would not have been able to defend my family. I mean, that’s horrific. It’s awful. First of all, it’s hypocritical because I was championing it and then not living it out. But secondly, it was just putting my family in danger, I was not doing my job as a husband and a father and a family member. And so fortunately, someone invited me to a course where I got my first training, and I just became so excited about it and really passionate about getting other people trained as well. When you see these mass murder events around the country, it’s very important to me that we stop those as quickly as possible. By having a sheepdog, that’s a trained good guy or good girl with a firearm in every restaurant, church, Walmart, grocery store event, everywhere, so that you can stop that event, as soon as it starts, or even before it starts and save lives. So we’re training as many people as we can, we would love to train you. And we’d love for you to come in and have fellowship with us. So today, we’ll kick it off, you’ll get the first part of this presentation, then we’ll get the rest of it throughout the week. And then hopefully, you’ll get a chance to come with us. You don’t have to come to this very first class that’s on the groundbreaking on April 22nd and the in the class on April 23rd. We’ll be having a class nearly every week, throughout the year. So you can come anytime. And join us. Bring your family. 11 years old and up can train on the range with you. And it’s important to teach them while you’re there young, which you’ll hear about in this presentation. But you’re going to get a good grounding in the Second Amendment. And I remember when David Barton did his premiere on the Second Amendment years ago, and it woke me up, it made me realize all the Founding Fathers quotes, all the judicial quotes, all those things that gives you… that prove that the Founding Fathers, first of all, were not giving us the right of self defense, they were protecting that. It’s a God given right. And the Constitution and the founding fathers and the way they set up America was to defend that right, to protect you, so that you can protect your rights so that you can protect your family. And that’s what we’ll be learning about today, and throughout the week. Let’s get into that presentation when we come back from the break. Stay with us; you’re listening to WallBuilders.

Hey, friends, if you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live for very long at all, you know how much we respect our veterans and how appreciative we are of the sacrifice they make to make our freedoms possible. One of the ways that we love to honor those veterans is to tell their stories here on WallBuilders Live. Once in a while we get an opportunity to interview veterans that have served on those front lines that have made incredible sacrifices, have amazing stories that we want to share with the American people. One of the very special things we get to do is interview World War II veterans. You’ve heard those interviews here on WallBuilders Live from folks that were in the Band of Brothers to folks like Edgar Harrell that survived being Indianapolis, there’s so many other great stories you’ve heard on WallBuilders Live. You have friends and family that also serve. If you have World War II veterans in your family that you would like to have their story shared here on WallBuilders Live, please email us at [email protected], [email protected]. Give us a brief summary of the story and we’ll set up an interview. Thanks so much for sharing here on WallBuilders Live.

Thanks for staying with us. Here we go. We’re going to jump into constitutional defense of your family and freedom.

Freedom, everyone says they love it, most even saying that they would fight for it. But how many of us can even define it? Let alone know how to defend the freedom we love? The time has come for every American citizen to learn about our constitutional freedoms, and then do our part as good citizens to defend that constitution, especially our Second Amendment rights. Front Sight has teamed up with constitution expert Rick Green to bring you an entertaining and educational program that will equip and inspire you to defend your family and your freedom.

Brad Ackman
This is Constitutional Defense. I’ve been training people how to defend themselves with firearms for more than 30 years. I could not do that training, nor could any of us live out that training, if not for the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. However, the Second Amendment and indeed the Constitution itself must be vigorously defended if we expect to maintain these critical rights. So in addition to providing you with world class firearms training, Front Sight now offers you expert training on the Constitution. Armed with this knowledge, you can be even more effective at defending the founding document that makes all of this possible. Welcome to Front Sight’s constitutional defense course, where you will learn how to defend your family’s liberty for the long haul, not just in the heat of battle. We’ll be taking you into Front Sight’s classroom where you’re going to learn from our constitutional expert. He’s even going to take us to the very place where the Constitution was framed. However, we’re going to start this program with a roundtable discussion to give you some insight into the purpose and the goals of Front Sight’s constitutional defense course, and also to introduce you to our expert instructor, Mr. Rick Green, who is also a Front Sight first family member and a handgun distinguished graduate. Rick, thanks for teaming up with us to bring us this information to our members.

Rick Green
Man, it’s my pleasure, Brad, it’s an honor to be with both you guys here at Front Sight and get to team up with Front Sight, super excited about it. Because I get excited anytime anyone is willing to take time to actually study the founding document and start diving into what made America so great and unique and most importantly, start asking the questions, what can we do to make sure we’re taking this freedom we’ve been given and actually passing it on to the next group coming behind us?

Brad Ackman
Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Especially since you and your family have a way of taking what many people consider to be fairly drab subjects, history and law, and literally bringing them to light.

Rick Green
We try to. I hate boring history, right, nobody wants to just memorize dates and names. Let’s tell the stories about how we got here. Well, you guys do a great job. It’s very inspiring. Alright. Also joining us is longtime first family member, Eric Rogers. Eric, tell us what you think our members can expect to get out of this new series?

Eric Rogers
Well, first of all, I think this is a great partnership. I mean, I’ve been training here a very long time. We all know that Front Sight is the absolute best at training people in how to use firearms right. I think that’s a unanimous decision there. And now that I’ve learned more about you, Rick, I understand that there’s probably no one better than the United States in teaching us about the Constitution, about the Bill of Rights, about what they mean, about how important they are, and particularly here since we’re here at Front Sight, the Second Amendment, right, that’s a big one.

Rick Green
I was a little worried when you said now that I’ve learned more about you, I thought you were going to say I’m out of here. But thank you… Thank you, man.

Eric Rogers
No, definitely. And so, the Second Amendment is obviously really important. I also am really impressed with your family, Rick. I’m impressed with your kids. I’m impressed with your wife. I’m impressed with your interaction with each other, and how you team up to teach us this stuff. So we’re honored to have you here and we’re ready to learn.

Rick Green
Man, I’m looking forward to it.

Brad Ackman
Alright, and just wait till we combine your family’s love of the Constitution in the Second Amendment with some serious firepower out on the rain.

Rick Green
Wait. Wait. You guys are saying we’re not just going to sit around, break out the old books and spend time in the classroom?

Eric Rogers
You know what? I predict, I can predict that there’s going to be some serious firepower, there’s going to be some serious liberty and freedom going down range.

Rick Green
I love it.

Brad Ackman
Alright, hold on there. Before we get to exercising those Second Amendment rights, we need to make you work for it a little bit.

Rick Green
I’m willing. I’m willing.

Brad Ackman
Some people would say that, look, the Second Amendment’s been in place for 230 years, roughly, give or take. Why is there even a need to discuss it? Why can’t we just get to the range and start exercising those rights?

Rick Green
Right. No, I think it’s a great place to start our classes, even to start thinking about why is it so important to study the Second Amendment, not just live out the Second Amendment. And the reason is because we always think of the Second Amendment protecting our right to keep and bear arms. We forget that it’s also our job to protect the Second Amendment through our activities as citizens; to make sure that it’s still the law of the land; to make sure that we continue to have those rights. The only way we can do that is actually studying those rights and studying the documents where they’re found.

Eric Rogers
That is a concept that most of us have and certainly that I’ve had my whole life and that the Constitution exists. It’s there. It says what it says. So what work do we have to do? So I think that that’s really important. And that kind of brings us back to our earlier question about, you know, what people are going to get out of this series. And I guarantee people will learn a ton, certainly important history that they’ve maybe they’ve never heard about before. They’re going to be entertained. And that’s interesting too. Because like you said, sometimes these subjects are thought of as drab or maybe a little boring or that’s… Absolutely not, you know, particularly when you’re talking about it. You know, you bring it alive, and you use great examples, and you get the humor in there and it really helps. I mean, I think that’s really important. And I think it’s important that we all through this exercise, get inspired to be good citizens, which I think we all want to do.

Rick Green
Man, I couldn’t agree with you more, I think that’s really is the purpose. Because a lot of times frankly, we’re spoiled, we enjoy the liberty, we enjoy the blessings we’ve been given, and we forget, there’s a burden with that. With every right, there’s a responsibility. So while we enjoy the right to keep and bear arms, we enjoy the right throw that lead down the range, we need to understand what it is that’s protecting it, and then take the actions that are necessary to do exactly that. So that’s really what we’re going to do in the course is deep dive into how does citizenship really work? What can we do to preserve these rights?

Eric Rogers
I have a quick comment on that. And that is that it depends on where you live, maybe. Because you live in Nevada, or Texas or someplace like that, which is a little more free, a little more open. Maybe you did take those for granted. But I live in California, and so I see the erosion.

Rick Green
Yeah, you’ve seen the infringement. You’ve seen a little by little start to take away your right to keep and bear arms.

Eric Rogers
Yeah. And it starts as a trickle and then it’s a full river. And so I see that, and I’m looking forward to you helping us learn what to do in order to reverse that.

Rick Green
Well, this really fits Brad with your talk on moral and ethical decisions and using deadly force. Because you talk about the difference between morals and ethics, the fact that society decides what the ethics of that culture, you know, what they’re going to be. And fortunately, for us, the ethics of the founding of our country back then the society said, hey, right to keep and bear arms is essential, it’s part of the laws of nature, we want to make sure it’s part of our culture. It’s been that way for 230 years. But sometimes you can feel that sand shifting, right? I mean, things are changing, and the attitudes are changing out there. And so it’s up to us as citizens to influence what those attitudes are. Otherwise, we’re going to wake up, and society is going to decide, hey, you guys no longer have the right to keep and bear arms. We’re just going to let the government take care of that. No longer do you get to defend yourself.

Brad Ackman
So basically, you’re saying the way to prevent that erosion of liberty, then is to study the roots of that liberty?

Rick Green
Exactly, right. No, it’s exactly right. And I would say I kind of stole that line, I would say, because John Jay is the one that really said it, he was our first Chief Justice, and he said, every single citizen ought to study the Constitution. Not just read it, but study it so that we can teach the rising generation to be free. So as these kids are coming up, now we got to know what our rights are, teach the next generation what those rights are. And then he said, If we know our rights, if we’ve actually studied, if we found it in the Constitution and understood where it came from, then we’ll be ready, we’ll recognize when those rights have been violated and we’ll be the better prepared, he said, to defend and assert those rights. Which means if we know those rights, we know where they came from, we know what the founders actually meant with California or the federal government or whoever starts infringing on them, we can say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, we know what our rights are. We can stand up for those things peaceably, right. We just engage in the process. There’s plenty of, you know, at our fingertips, we got everything we need to peaceably assert, as John Jay said, those rights. That’s what we’re going to learn how to do.

Eric Rogers
Well, and I think that what’s important about that, there’s social media today, let’s bring it to the current times. You know, you see these posts and things and people start arguing with you. And if we’re equipped to not just say, well, it’s right there, it’s in the Second Amendment and read the text. But actually have the arguments, have the background understand what the founders were talking about.

Rick Green
You could say, we’re going to give people ammunition. This is a different ammunition than what we’re usually going down range.

Eric Rogers
I mean, just talking to you from the time we’ve been together, I already have way more arguments way more ammunition to be more effective than that.

Rick Green
I love it.

Brad Ackman
Alright, gentlemen, so let’s take this opportunity then to take our viewers directly into the training with Rick in the classroom. And throughout this series, we’ll be going into the Front Sight classroom, we’ll be going out onto the ranges. We’re even going to go to the cradle of liberty itself. That’s obviously Independence Hall in Philadelphia. For today’s session, we’re going to start on that part of the Constitution that is most near and dear to Front Sight first family members, and that is the Second Amendment, without a doubt. Front Sight members get their firearms training by day and their Constitution training by night.

Rick Green
Great match, man, get them both at once.

Brad Ackman
I think it’s wonderful, absolutely. Alright. Well, then let’s head into the classroom where Rick, you’re going to load us up with some constitutional firepower.

Rick Green
Let’s do it.

Brad Ackman
Alright, let’s go.

He is an attorney and a former legislator from the state of Texas. He is also a Front Sight first family member and a handgun distinguished graduate. Please help me welcome our guest instructor for the evening, Mr. Rick Green.

Rick Green
Thank you, brother. Yeah, I’m going to use that one. Thank you, man. Appreciate it very much. Alright. Okay, you guys ready? Did anybody get to throw some lead downrange today? Yeah? Anybody? Alright. Tomorrow, you’ll shoot a lot more than you did today. You got some great stuff, so we’re getting started. But it’s going to get even better. We’re going to load you up tonight with intellectual ammunition so when you get back home, you can do battle with your neighbors family, whoever it is, that’s wanting to get rid of the Second Amendment and destroy our Constitution. You’re going to learn how to restore our Constitution to make sure that it’s protected for future generations. I don’t know about you guys, I love Front Sight. I have been coming for about six years now. I consider this the “Disney land of gun owners.” This is where our family would rather vacation here than anywhere else. We love coming out the Front Sight. It’s been an absolute privilege for us to get to train here, get to know so many folks and get a chance to prepare our family for defense. I really appreciate Brad being a part of this as well. I remember the first time I saw Brad, he didn’t have any idea who I was. I was sitting in the very back there with my son, Trey. And we came and we just sitting back there watching, and learning from Brad, there wasn’t videos at the time, we were watching him give those lectures live. And we just learned so much. And so now I get to team up with him and go to these historical places has been really cool, a great opportunity for us, and just exciting to be a part of this. I’m thankful to Dr. Piazza for allowing us to do this. He loves the Constitution, wants to see the Constitution protected and defended. And he knows that you as members of Front Sight or for those of you that are here for the first time, that in learning to use your weapon and learning to exercise your Second Amendment, learning to defend yourself and your families, you’ve also got to begin to defend the Second Amendment itself, to defend the Constitution. It’s under great attack today. Dr. Piazza understands that and that’s why he wanted us to be able to do this. So we’re thrilled to be able to team up with him and team up with Front Sight. I’m a little bit surprised that he’s letting me do this, frankly, I mean, to let a Texas politician have the stage for a little bit. But I am a recovering politician. Just for those of you that are wondering, I am now two years clean off the ballot. So my wife is quite happy about that, would much rather us be doing exactly this than running for office. So we do tend to think of politicians in a very negative light. What we’re going to talk about a little bit tonight is what to look for in leaders that will defend the Second Amendment. First thing you got to look for is not politicians, but patriots. A politician is only thinking about the next election, a patriot is thinking about the next generation. And by the end of this evening, you’re going to learn how you can help to raise up an entire generation of patriots that are willing to defend not only the Second Amendment, but the entire Constitution and how to lead effectively. In fact, you’re going to hear from some of those folks tonight as well. I want to jump right in, first of all, to why I started becoming a patriot, I believe, and patriotic about what we have here in America. I, like, many of you maybe grew up a little bit spoiled when it came to freedom, just the idea of we get to enjoy the blessings of liberty, but we don’t really sometimes think about the burden that comes with that. We don’t accept the burden. We don’t invest our time in a way that will defend that freedom. Typically, most of the time, we just enjoy those blessings and we enjoy being free. That’s certainly how it was for me. But I went to a dinner in 1994, it was the last public speech that Ronald Reagan ever gave. And as we’re waiting on President Reagan to come out, they were playing some of his speeches. They had screen just like this right here, and they had him going all the way around the room. And they were playing the speeches of Ronald Reagan, we’re waiting for he and Margaret Thatcher to come out. And they played this particular speech. And if you recognize the screen right there, that’s point the hawk France, point the hog, wherever you want to pronounce it, but it’s point the ho, it’s where our Army Rangers, 225 of Rudder’s Rangers… Any Aggies in the room? I know Nathan Macias is back there. Yeah. So these were Rudder’s Rangers and Rudder’s Rangers, in taking those cliffs, that was the beginning of DD, that was the beginning of taking back an entire continent for freedom. Well, here’s Reagan, it’s the 40th anniversary. He’s standing there atop the cliffs, the monument is behind him. And seated around him, you can kind of see in the picture there were about 15 or 20 of those Rangers that were still alive at the time on the 40th anniversary. Of the 225, only 90 survived the mission. Here’s 15 or 20 of them seated around Reagan. And Reagan starts to recount the horrific, yet heroic events of that day, starts reminding them what it was like and talking about how one would fall and another would take their place. He’s going through the whole thing. And the camera starts kind of panning across these tough old Army Rangers, every one of them, tears welling up in their eyes as they’re taken back to those days of sacrifice. Here I was I was probably 22 years old as I sat there and watch this on the screen. My dad’s on my right, guy on my left was a man named George McCormick, and Mr. McCormick was a bomber pilot in World War II. He was a great patriot, great American. And I’m sitting there, I’m watching this on the screen and I happen to look over at Mr. McCormick as Reagan is taking us back to those days of sacrifice. And right there at that dinner, everybody in their tuxedos, Mr. McCormack just got tears running down his face. And instantly it suddenly hit me for the first time in my life: I began to understand the personal sacrifice of the man sitting next to me and that he had made that sacrifice for me.

Alright, folks, we’re out of time for today. We’re going to jump right back into the presentation tomorrow. This will be what we share with you throughout the week. And then you can have a chance to come see that presentation in person and get the handgun training as well. You can do the full blown constitutional defense of your family and freedom course. With your entire family at the Patriot Academy campus in Fredericksburg, Texas. The very first class on site on the campus will be April 23rd. Now the groundbreaking ceremony the ceremonial, big event that we’re going to have to welcome… we’re probably going to have well over 1,000 people. We’ve already got close to 1,000 that have registered at the event. We’d love for you to join us as well. That’s on April 22nd with Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and Tim Barton and Mark Meckler and myself, John Rich and others. And then the next day April 23rd. Is that very first constitutional defense of your family and freedom. To find out more go to PatriotAcademy.com and click on constitutional defense. We’ll see you tomorrow and we’ll pick up where we left off today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders.